Damn it man, I’m a metrician, not a magician!

Well, it’s been a wild ride on twitter for the past few days. If you follow the hockey analytics crowd on twitter you probably know what I’m talking about, though for those of you that don’t, let me fill you in. I think the best place to start is the beginning of this recent road and it’s a bit of a bumpy ride so buckle up.

As I’m sure many, if not all, of you know, on Thursday afternoon the Leafs placed Grabovski on waivers for the purpose of buying him out. I think it’s pretty safe to say that this news was a shock to most of us, but none more so than those heavily involved in the “advanced statistics” community.

NOTE: As a slight detour, I placed that in quotations because I, like some of the others that use these numbers (Corsi, Fenwick, etc.) prefer to call them possession statistics or just statistics. The reason is relatively simple, “advanced” is a term that differentiates those numbers from the ones tracked by the NHL and in order to help the possession numbers become more widely used and more understood, the end goal is for the two to be treated homogeneously (with the appropriate trust in the different statistics based on the merits of each).

Why was this move such a shock? Well, because Grabovski is a good hockey player that signed an expensive (pretty much accepted that he’s overpaid, the degree to which is open for debate) contract because he put up points. This season however, instead of playing Grabovski in an offensive situation, Carlyle gave Grabovski some of the toughest minutes in the league. He started the vast majority of his non-neutral zone shifts in the defensive zone against opposing teams’ top players, making it very difficult to generate offense. On top of that, he played with line-mates that weren’t exactly going to set the world on fire offensively themselves, exacerbating the problem of generating offense. On top of that Grabovski had some bad puck luck and a gastro intestinal issue that’s he’s been dealing with for quite some time. In past seasons when he’s been used in an offensive role, he’s been a possession monster for the Leafs. This season the Leafs were a train wreck possession wise but Grabovski was still good relative to the team, which is very impressive considering his role.

Grabovski wasn’t placed in a position to succeed offensively, was instead given some of the toughest minutes possible, dealt with bad luck and an injury, and was still above water possession wise relative to the team. So his buyout didn’t really make a lot of sense, regardless of the re-signing of Tyler Bozak that took place the next day.

The outrage this buyout generated amongst the hockey analytics twitterverse was met by opponents (or non-users) of possession statistics with cries of melodrama and claims of understanding the buyout because of Grabovski’s lack of production given his cap hit. Harsh words were exchanged on both sides, prompting a tweeter by the handle @smithdanielj to claim “Grabo’s buyout may prove to be the Archduke Franz Ferdinand assassination of the war between Stats guys and Traditionalists.”

The next day wasn’t much better as the Leafs spent big money bringing in David Clarkson and re-signing Tyler Bozak. The prevailing opinion amongst the hockey analytics people is that Bozak is an inferior player to Grabovski, an opinion not shared by most mainstream media types (as evidenced by TSN placing Bozak as their #4 UFA with Grabovski as #9). Before noon, when FA Frenzy officially began, news of Grabovski clearing waivers was yet to be announced and the opponents/non-users of possession statistics were forwarding ideas that if Grabovski cleared waivers the proponents of possession statistics were wrong abut Grabovski. This certainly didn’t help ease tensions between the two groups.

Saturday saw the intensity of the dialogue brought down to a simmer (-ish situation) but Sunday would easily change that.

On Sunday morning, Leafs forward Joffrey Lupul tweeted “contracts aren’t awarded by this CORSI i am hearing all about. They are awarded for an equal value of skill and depth (at a certain position” and “If you bring certain attributes and you play to win. I’ll take you on my team 7 nights a week. Lets not look at this like Moneyball.”

And with that, all hell broke loose. The dialogue developing from Lupul’s tweet once again pitted “traditionalists” (opponents/non-users of possession statistics) against “advanced statistics” people. Quietly tucked away in the debate are clusters of productive discourse but for the most part the claws came out and the name-calling began with earnest. Typical comments coming from the “traditionalist” camp were along the lines of “watch the games instead conjuring up all-knowing numbers from behind your abacus”, while responses from the “advanced statistics” people took the form of “show us something better Luddites”.

These are of course exaggerations of the comments (in most cases, some were actually like these) and there were a relatively large number of people saying, “Actually it’s possible (and preferable) to use possession statistics AND watch hockey (correctly) to evaluate players”. In fact, the purpose of using these numbers is to shine the light on what’s happening on the ice, a shared goal with video analysis. Both are typically used in good analysis to reinforce each other and explain abnormalities.

The ride is almost over, I just want to take a minute to say that I enjoy using possession statistics to augment my understanding of the game and that they’ve helped me focus my attention to useful activities while watching hockey games. These statistics aren’t “advanced” or sorcery at all, and in fact are really about finding ways to quantify (albeit with funny names) ideas that we hear hockey players talk about all the time (great visualization of these ideas by Blake Murphy called “EXPLAINING THE GRABOVSKI-BOZAK “STATS” DEBATE IN SHINNY HOCKEY TERMS”).

The point I’m trying to get across here is that these stats don’t paint the whole picture and don’t replace watching the games, and nor should they. However, they DO tell a story about what happened and when used with the knowledge of other variables like “character”, “skating ability”, etc., a more complete picture of a player begins to take shape. They don’t tell the complete story about what’s going to happen in the future either (something Cam points out in article below) but there are other measures that help with that (like knowing the peak scoring years for forwards, for example).

Anyone know what the buyout will be for the lasy 2 years of Clarkson's contract. The middle couple of years is at 7mil per but it drops off in years 6 7 I believe. the buyout should be cheap ... a mil a year or so? If thats the case not such a bad cap contract, especially if the cap climbs ..... like it has almost every year.

Give Kadri Duchenes contract + a year. 3 yrs at 3.5 each year. Sign Franson for 6 years, 4.2 million (JVR-like deal), trade Liles, try and resign Gunnar for just under 3, and who gives a shit about the rest tbh. lolll.

JMAC17, Bon... I still can't reply from my BB... Earl McRae's book is called The Victors and the Vanquished. He used to write for Canadian Magazine - it was an insert in the weekend paper in the 70s... If you can't find it get in touch with the site owners and I'll mail a copy of the Leaf articles... Bon, yes the Popcorn Kid is a Leaf scout...

Interesting to see how much the RFA defense will get.. Franson and Gunnerson will more then likely get the same type of contract maybe 2-3yrs @ 3.25 and Fraser maybe 1.25 Kadri should command a healthy 3.. have to move someone for sure hopefully Liles... he's a good player just doesn't fit in the grand scheme of things.. we need the RFA's to be signed or at least let Gunnerson walk and pick up a Murray or Hainsey..

Good night gents. I'm going to enjoy summer a bit and slow down the commenting. Unless somethign massive happens and i see it it on twitter. But I'll be back full force late August. And I really want to do a full season of Game Day Thread banners. Take care.

@palmspringsleafer While it will be cheap for the Leafs cash-wise in that case, the cap hit is averaged over the contract term, and as I understand it, the cap hit on a buyout wouldn`t change based on actual dollars paid. I believe $6.5m buyout (total of two-thirds for two years) spread over four years. So $1.625m cap hit for 4 years.

@daveybolland The only move I disliked was the Bozak resigning/Grabo buyout. I really like the Bolland addition. He's going to be a fan favourite. I hated and then warmed up to the Bernier addition and am onboard with that decision. Clarkson... I've always liked him and coveted him, but dislike his term. I get that it was free agency and it's a bidding war. He'll be great here and another fan favourite. The last few years of that contract will be a bit of a mess, as predicted.

We needed a 1C and a pairing for Dion and got neither. I really, truly believed that would launch this team into contenders quickly. I've believe they'll contend (reach a SC final) within the next 2-3 years with a couple of good trades and was disappointed that wil be prolonged until they get a true 1C and a really good D to play with Dion.

@daveybolland Im excited as a mawf! Its clear that many ppl are just obsessed with the speed we displayed last season, and don't understand that although that speed was hard to counter, it also left many holes throughout our lineup physically and stylistically in Randy's matchups which over a period of time made it hard to maintain leads. Now we have speed, and we have filled those needs , and IMO look MUCH more diverse, with everybody having clear roles going into next season. A couple games and i think Alec and the gang will come around on the moves Nonis has made.

@daveybolland I wouldn't worry about that. They are a few of the writers that I read who can be objective by describing the pros and cons of the changes. They will offer their opinion but are are pretty good about not letting that influence the quality of their content.

@DeclanK@mcloki Thanks. Best thing for me was once I was searching Google images for something Toronto based and one of the banner showed up. And I still need new ideas for the Game day thread pictures. I can't use wings for Buffalo this season. I'd love to open it up to the general population and see if they come up with something interesting. Maybe during the dog days of summer when nothing is happening. Probably start at the unofficial winding down of summer. Opening of the EX. Your thanks are appreciated. Love to help.

@Bon Scott was a Leaf fan Obviously that varies wildly...You can use that million variance though to judge the value of a UFA contract (sort of a premium fee for zero player assets expended). ex. Bozak worth 3.2 - probably

@Bon Scott was a Leaf fan@getstanley1@wiski I think that's why Leaf fans have never really developed a hate-on for the Sabres like some of our other rivals. We've had a window on their strange little world and hold it with some affection.

Habs will be paying a lot more than the $2.7 mill he got this year and will get next on in less than two years when the RFA contract he signed in January is up. Winning the Norris doesn't help the Habs lowball him again.

Problem with gauging Kadri for a new contract is the season was only 48 games long. And April wasn't his best stretch of games with only 4 points. Don't know how you find a comparable. Subban at $2.7 mil?

@Bon Scott was a Leaf fan The problem with Grabovski's contract was the dearth of FA centres last year. There was no way you could afford not to sign him. Probably 2 million over actual value due to the market shortage.